While editing his most recent feature film, filmmaker Mitch Davis, writer
and director of The Other Side of Heaven, began seeing articles
about Mitt Romney’s potential candidacy for U.S. president. Most of the
articles said that Mitt’s candidacy might be doomed by resistance from
evangelical Christians to the idea of a Mormon President, particularly
in the South.

“I thought what an ironic situation,” Davis comments. “Evangelicals
have never had a candidate whose values and lifestyle more closely mirror
their own. He’s clean and smart and sober and chaste. There’s just this
history of religious infighting to overcome. I realized that exploring
that issue in the context of Mitt’s run for president would make a great
movie.”

“I grabbed my son and his video camera and we started doing man-on-the-street
interviews. I was absolutely shocked at the level of ignorance about Mormonism
I encountered,” Davis recounts. “So I decided to form a political organization
to help combat that ignorance and get Mitt into the White House. We are
going to promote Mitt’s candidacy and make a movie about it at the same
time.”

Called “RunMittRun.org,” Davis’ organization is a 527 modeled after
well known institutions MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.

“Hillary Clinton will undoubtedly receive tens of millions of dollars
from MoveOn.org and other left-leaning organizations” says Davis. “I believe
that Romney will make a much better President. I have formed RunMittRun
so that people who want to help Mitt have a place to contribute in addition
to Mitt’s campaign itself.”

As Davis researched public sentiment he discovered that ignorance, not
bigotry is biggest impediment to Mitt’s election.

“Sure, religious bigotry exists out there, but the real problem is that
people don’t know anything about us. Mormons have spent so much time doing
missionary work, we just assume that people know us, but they really don’t.’”

A recent poll confirmed Davis’ sentiments. At the behest of RunMittRun.org,
California-based Lawrence Research Associates performed a scientific poll
in South Carolina, the location of a crucial Presidential primary.

The results were stunning. Of those polled, 44% believe Mormons still
practice polygamy, 27% believe Mormons worship Joseph Smith, 50% believe
Mormons do not believe in the Bible, having replaced it with the Book of
Mormon, and 25% believe Mormons are not Christians with another 25% undecided
on the topic.

Only 10% of those polled know Mormonism’s basic claim (that theirs is
the restored or reestablished church of Jesus Christ on the earth).

“It was incredible how little people know about us,“ said the poll’s
supervisor, Dr. Gary Lawrence, himself a Mormon. “And what they think they
know, they misunderstand. It’s no wonder so many are biased against the
Church when only one person in ten can even state the basic claim of Mormonism.”

“And it’s not just a Southern thing,” Lawrence continues. “The data
coming out of other regions are hauntingly similar.”

Indeed, the widely reported L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll released last
week showed that 37% of those polled could not vote for a Mormon for president.

“Our South Carolina number was actually slightly better than the nationwide
number,” Lawrence informs. “33% of the South Carolinans said they could
not vote for a Mormon. In contrast, Guiliani’s Catholicism got off with
an 8% disapproval rating and McCain’s Episcopalianism rated a 13% negative
score.

Davis is not discouraged by the numbers.

“Americans know that these are serious times and that we need an exceptional
leader. When they find that leader in Mitt Romney, they will let a lot
of their Mormon misgivings go. Our organization hopes to help them get
there in time for the Presidential primaries.”

“It is going to be a really interesting time. For good or ill, Mitt’s
run will be the Olympics times ten PR-wise for the Mormon Church. But if
Americans who care get behind Mitt now and contribute tens of millions
of dollars to the cause, we can debunk the naysayers and Mitt will win.”

Davis is counting on getting disproportionate support from Mormons in
the intermountain west.

“I don’t think anyone should vote for a guy because he is Mormon. But
I think a lot of people, especially in Utah, would fight against the idea
that a Mormon could never be president. We need those kinds of people to
begin spreading the word about Romney across the United States to all of
their friends of every faith. Our website provides a lot of viral content
that will make that very easy and fun to do.”

Davis summarizes: “We are going to help Mitt win and we are going to
make a movie about it. If we do our jobs right, the next time a Mormon
runs for President, religion won’t even be an issue.”

For more information on Davis’ political organization and to view video
clips outtakes from the documentary, visit www.RunMittRun.org.

(Poll was conducted by Lawrence Research Associates based in Santa Ana,
California. 10-15 minute telephone interviews were conducted July 6-10,
2006, using a random sample of registered voters proportionate to voter
population density by county. Results have a +/- 4.1% margin of error with
a 95% confidence level. Poll was supervised by Dr. Gary C. Lawrence, Ph.D.,
Stanford University.)